The PV Video
The news spilled from an old analog TV, painting the current state of Shion in grim strokes.
I sat at the bar in a daze, watching the broadcast with one eye while my fingers drummed against the counter. A woman in a sharp suit with blonde hair slid onto the stool beside me.
“If the future sight is accurate, it should be about time, shouldn’t it?”
“Yeah. The tower’s collapsed, so things will start moving soon.”
“I never thought your future sight would actually come true. You’re wrong so often that I assumed this time would be the same.”
“That’s because I sabotaged most of them on purpose. Yambre.”
Yambre—the woman I’d just addressed—let a thin smile slip between her red lips, clearly pleased with my answer. She rattled the ice in her glass with a soft clink and raised it toward me like a toast.
I pushed her glass away with a sigh. She took the hint and eased into the real topic.
“So, does that future sight of yours suggest the original story will begin without any issues?”
“For now. Assuming you don’t do anything.”
“My, my. You know better than anyone that I can’t do anything, don’t you?”
Yambre leaned against my arm with a coquettish tilt, but I recoiled as if she were something repulsive.
“…I still can’t get used to that body.”
“Well? It’s much better than that dreary male form, isn’t it?”
“You only swapped bodies. Why did your speech patterns change too?”
“When you possess the body of a beautiful girl, you have to act the part. That’s what you call service spirit.”
“Service spirit my ass. You changed bodies to dodge the restrictions.”
“Haa… Even after changing like this, the bindings you placed on me refuse to disappear.”
“They were created by your own ability. Of course they wouldn’t.”
We continued our conversation with a shared sigh. Eventually Yambre leaned across the table, lowering her voice as she got to the point.
“Now then. You went so far as to bind me just to protect that original story. What do you plan to do next?”
“There’s only one thing left to do. From now on…”
“From now on?”
I downed the contents of the glass in front of me in one gulp. My eyes stayed fixed on the continuing news broadcast as I declared,
“Oh…”
“The story you’re about to see will be something entirely different.”
……
What the hell was that?
What did I just watch?
Seriously, what did I just see?
Was this how people felt when they stumbled across information from an alien civilization they were never meant to know?
“This is making me dizzy. For real…”
I grabbed hold of my fading consciousness, shot up from my seat, and tried to summarize the video I’d just seen. It was a scene of me and Yambre talking in some bar three days before the original story began.
“Why… is Yambre a woman?”
Why the hell had that bastard turned into a woman, and why did he—no, she—act so chummy with me? No matter how I thought about it, none of it made sense. What on earth had happened to cause something like this?
I wanted to declare it absolutely impossible, but this was official content. It wasn’t some fan-made secondary creation. This was canon. It was such an absurd future that I almost wanted to deny the very idea of canon itself.
“The reactions are going to be terrifying.”
I was genuinely scared to see how the users would respond to this PV. Heart pounding, I cautiously opened the comment section.
ㄴYeah
ㄴYambre TS is actually fucking insane lmao
The atmosphere was better than I expected. I’d thought the boards would be on fire with people screaming “male characters get out,” but the mood was surprisingly warm and lively.
The Korean server launching
The 3-star selector being distributed
Luka fans having to wait two years
It’s all thanks to Helper-sensei’s grace…
If it weren’t for Helper I would’ve never met my wife…
ㄴMountainFishMeat
If it tastes good then who cares lol
ㄴMountainFishMeat
Guess she’ll have to atone by becoming my wife…
It was utterly horrifying to me, but Yambre’s presence seemed to have satisfied the board. Most users were focused on her, but some weren’t.
ㄴThat last line sounds like they’re hinting at changing the Korean server story
ㄴDoesn’t that mean the future sight is getting completely wrecked?
As everyone knows, Yambre’s ability is about choices, right? Once a choice is made, it has to be followed through. Maybe Helper used Yambre’s ability in reverse to make sure the original story flowed properly?
Quite a few users were focused on the PV’s content and predicting how the future story would unfold. It was honestly impressive how quickly some of them guessed I was something like a possessor just from one line about the original story.
Honestly I wondered why they needed to add a male character, but after seeing today’s PV I get the intention. Seems like they’re overhauling the story around him. If the actual story is good it might work. Still… did it really have to be a male character?
Couldn’t it have just been a female character?
They already made Yambre TS anyway…
……
Watching these user reactions sent a chill down my spine. When I thought about it, I’d done pretty much everything the users hated. I’d gone on a date with Estelle and gotten deeply involved in Asha’s story. If any of that came to light, I was terrified of what the reaction would be. Would trucks seriously start showing up at the company?
“…They’ll handle it somehow. Yeah.”
If the company had any sense, they’d censor those parts as much as possible. Right?
While scanning the community with that thought in mind, one clear pattern stood out. Most of the positive reactions toward me weren’t actually about me—they were about the fact that I had made it possible for the character Yambre to become an executive.
“Maybe this…”
Maybe I could use this as a stepping stone to raise my popularity. What if I twisted the original story and accelerated the release of characters who hadn’t appeared in it yet? Wouldn’t that be enough to earn real popularity? I couldn’t say for sure, but it was definitely worth trying.
There was another group of users who liked me for a completely different reason.
Weapon: Gauntlets
Code: Clear
Passive — Otherworldly: Unaffected by skills that influence Mental Images. Unaffected by all Anomalous Aggregation effects.
Active — Speed Lock: Fixes the speed of any target Helper touches to match Helper’s own speed.
H.A.N.D System (Swap Skill): Deals damage of the same color as the swapped character. Additionally, the swapped character’s attacks change to match the enemy’s attribute for 10 seconds.
Mental Image Manifestation: (Not yet revealed)
The passive alone gives Mental Image immunity and Anomalous Aggregation immunity. The first combo that comes to mind is handing them a rotten apple and making them fight. Since most crowd control is Mental Image based, it’s basically CC immunity, but it’s interesting that you can’t receive most buffs either since they’re also Mental Image based. The active looks the most fun—it matches the target’s speed to Helper’s. At first glance it seems like a debuff, but if you stack insane movement speed on yourself and use it on allies it becomes a buff. The swap skill is a completely new type of buff too. This skill set is perfectly optimized to play around with like a toy. I’m seriously looking forward to what they put in for Mental Image Manifestation.
These were the kind of users who saw every character as nothing more than a combat weapon. To them, the strongest character was automatically their favorite. Watching them already theory-crafting with my not-fully-revealed skill set gave off a certain kind of madness.
“Hmm…?”
Looking at the skill set raised one question. The ability I’d obtained—Speed Restriction—wasn’t it supposed to limit the opponent’s speed to a maximum of 30 km/h? Had it been changed to matching speeds with me when it was gamified?
……
No. It was probably more accurate to say my ability still had room for growth. Thanks to the overlaid possibilities from the past, I knew how to use it well, but I needed to think more about how to utilize the power itself. Just being able to see a direction for growth was plenty.
“Ugh… I don’t really get it.”
There wasn’t really anything in the room I could use to test the ability on. For now, it made more sense to focus on the Heart system rather than superpowers.
“Mother Box. Explain the H.E.A.R.T system to me.”
The H.E.A.R.T system is a core component of the Mother Box system. It is the key device required to complete infinite power generation.
“…Infinite power?”
So it called forth possibilities from the past and used them to generate infinite power. No wonder it was named Heart.
“That guy talked to me before. Can it still speak now?”
Negative. The previous voice output was a Mental Image mimicry process based on emergency protocol. The H.E.A.R.T system currently has no personality module installed. If an interactive interface is required, please access the B.R.A.I.N system.
“Okay. So this thing doesn’t have any intelligence?”
Correct.
“Mother Box, now that the Heart system has been added, what new things can you do?”
Scanning newly installed functions. Scan complete. System control efficiency improved. Limited past alteration possible. System detection range improved.
“…Explain it simply. One at a time.”
System control efficiency. The number of modules that can be controlled simultaneously has increased. The current maximum is two modules.
That meant I could now use magic while running auto-combat.
Limited past alteration. Using the H.E.A.R.T system, it is possible to call forth a possibility within the last hour once per day. However, this is a localized change that applies only to the administrator’s body.
“A possibility within the last hour?”
Calling forth a possibility from within the last hour made me think of using an uninjured version of myself. Could it function as a one-time recovery or dodge skill?
System detection range improved. Detection range has increased from 100m to 150m.
“Got it. Thanks.”
As expected, the most outrageous ability was the Mother Box. It wasn’t for nothing that both Monad and the Hunter Guild strictly managed it as a device of destruction.
“…Hmm.”
That thought led me to one particular person. Crome. Just who was that guy that he knew about and was researching a device of destruction? With that question in mind, I used up the rest of my search attempts on Crome’s identity, but…
“…Looks like he hasn’t appeared on the Japanese server yet either.”
Every result only complained about the difficulty of the boss fight. There was almost nothing about Doctor Aurum’s true identity. Should I dig deeper? As I was thinking that, Hunter Net suddenly came to mind.
“Maybe try Hunter Net?”
There might be information related to Crome left on Hunter Net. Since there were no limits on searching it, I comfortably entered “Doctor Aurum” into the Hunter Net search.
“Okay. Search…”
ACCESS DENIED
SECURITY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED
The moment I entered the search term, my vision flashed. A piercing tinnitus rang out as bright yellow warning windows began violently covering my sight.
Like a self-replicating virus, the pop-ups instantly painted my entire field of view yellow.
And then—
“Huh? Wha—?”
A single text message arrived from an unknown number. It looked extremely suspicious, so I tried not to open it, but the message opened automatically. What was written there was: